Don’t Let the Economy Make Your Firm a Commodity

This article was first published on substance151.com.

How to Turn a Downturn Into a Competitive Advantage

During a downturn, it’s common to go with the initial knee-jerk reaction and move quickly into action. But is it the right action?

It may seem logical to react based on assumptions about what customers want – cutting costs and delivering faster. And although this type of response might work short-term, this will inevitably result in your firm becoming a commodity, a scenario from which it will be very difficult to recover. Because once you began to compete on price and speed, it’s extremely difficult to regain perceived differentiation, especially when there isn't a strong, differentiated brand in the first place.

Instead, leading companies use economic uncertainty as a motivator to get creative. They step back and look more deeply at their customers’ needs, and then they innovate to assert an even stronger position by building on their competitive differentiators – thus strengthening, not diluting their brand.

How do you make sure your customers don't see your firm as a commodity and choose it for the value it brings – even over price?

Three Strategies to Help Your Company Thrive

Digging Deeper for Survival: Get Clear About What Your Customers Need

Your customers want to hear from you more often than you think. In fact, they count on you to help them stay educated about what’s happening in their industry and to help them find innovative solutions to their toughest challenges. One of the biggest complaints we hear when conducting customer interviews on behalf of our clients is that service providers don’t take the time to deeply understand a day in their customer’s life.

Learning more about your prospects’ and clients’ daily challenges is a must for better positioning your firm to help them and for building stronger relationships. Additionally, using every point of contact to share insights from past projects, emerging trends and new solutions, positions you as a true partner who is critical to the customer’s success.

If you only use in-between-project time to talk about what’s happening at your company – or if you only see your customers at pitch time – you can’t truly get to know them, and knowing them better than your competitors do is a significant advantage when pitch time comes around.

No One-Size-Fits-All: Examine Niche Needs

What customer niches might exist within your larger audience? What would your bottom line look like if you focused on addressing niche needs? How would you need to evolve your brand and marketing to reflect your understanding of these audiences?

Niche services can add value while positioning your brand as an industry innovator and leader. Exploring potential niches is the first step in finding new, potentially profitable opportunities that enable you to make the shift to specialization without losing your footing as a general expert in your field.

Engaging Through Thought Leadership: Create Quality Content that Creates Connection

Sharing your firm’s thinking, being a resource and connecting on a level that demonstrates you know how to make your customers’ lives easier, enables your company to play an essential role in the overall success of those you wish to reach.

But here’s a catch – it takes time. You might spend months on content marketing before you actually engage your audience in real conversations that generate leads. So, the trick is not to give up too soon and also to experiment with different content types, formats and distribution channels.

Finally, make sure you have a path for your audience to follow that allows you to nurture the relationship.

The Bottom Line

The commoditization challenge is one of the biggest obstacles that professional services firms have faced in recent years, but in many ways, it’s not entirely new.

After all, finding truly relevant points of difference that trump price and speed has always been the ultimate goal in professional services marketing, and many customers have long been signaling that they do, in fact, want more than a “good deal.”

Specifically, professional services customers are looking for providers who are curious, who dig deeper and who, as a result, are able to meet their unique needs beyond simply helping them save money.

It’s those professional services firms that are able to recognize this opportunity that will overcome their commodity status and claim the role of a valued partner.

The question is, will you be one of them?

About the author: Ida Cheinman is Principal and Creative Director of the brand strategy + design + digital firm Substance151. She uses her 20+ years of experience as a brand strategist, designer, marketer, and educator to help business leaders and marketing professionals make sense of trends, tools, and best practices in order to position their firms to win in the 21st century’s fast-changing and extremely competitive marketplace.